Stuart WoodA new outdoor venue, the RCF Arena, opened last night in Italy and became Europe’s largest outdoor music venue.
The venue, which will accommodate 100,000 people at full capacity, opened 10 September with an audience-less concert by Italian singer Luciano Ligabue. A full capacity show is planned for June 2021, when Ligabue will return to the RCF Arena.
The RCF arena is situated in the city of Reggio Emilia, in the north of Italy. It features a sustainable design that uses almost 100% green parkland, cycle paths throughout and the planting of thousands of new trees.
RCF Arena will be managed by SPV C.Volo, formed by a network of 7 enterprises: Coopservice Soc.coop.p.A., Arena Campovolo S.r.l., Finregg S.p.a., Nial Nizzoli S.r.l., Rcf Group S.p.a., Smart Group S.c.a.r.l. and Taste S.r.l.
Arena Campovolo will be responsible for booking artists at the venue. The company was set up by Luciano Ligabue’s manager Claudio Maioli and Ferdinando Salzano, director of Friends&Partners S.p.A., the largest Italian company in the sector of live music. Friends&Partners was purchased by CTS Eventim Group in 2017.
Stefano Bonaccini, governor of the Emilia-Romagna region, commented: “Today, we celebrate the largest live entertainment arena in Europe. It seemed like a dream – even more impossible with the terrible pandemic still in progress – but we have pursued it with even more conviction, convinced that music, and more generally knowledge and culture, will be the engines of the restart.”